


Damoiseau in Distress

by AlyssaDreams



Series: Tales of a Hunter and a Bard [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAMF Betty Cooper, Bard!Jug, Caramel isn't a cat, F/M, Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy, Hunter!Betty, Meet-Cute, Pathfinder AU, RPG AU, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 01:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssaDreams/pseuds/AlyssaDreams
Summary: “Eat up. You have to keep your strength up after such a beatdown,” she said softly.“How did you get so wise?” he wondered.“Experience, I guess. I’ve been on my own for a while, roaming the kingdoms. There’s a lot you learn on the road.” she shrugged.Or: In an RPG world, Bard!Jug gets knocked out and Hunter!Betty comes to his rescue.





	Damoiseau in Distress

**Author's Note:**

> Heya, friends! 
> 
> So, this is my first fanfiction EVER so please bear with me. I want to thank Maria ([bloodredcherries](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries) here on AO3) for beta-ing this baby, and Cyd ([@shrugheadjonesthethird](https://www.tumblr.com/search/%40shrugheadjonesthethird/blog/smugheadjonesthethird) on Tumblr) for helping me with the title. You guys rock!! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Being so close to Riverdale unsettled Betty, but she had to collect some herbs that grew only in Fox Forest for a potion to cure a rare illness. She dreaded meeting anyone she had known when she still lived there, but the presence of her companion reassured her. The lioness was currently watching the area while Betty picked up the herbs she needed. It was a simple but repetitive task, and Betty let her thoughts wander to a time when she would have been scolded for even thinking of doing this.

She had had to be Elizabeth Cooper, a dignified lady who would hold a high position in society. She needed to be perfect: look pristine, be polite, fight gracefully, maintain a spotless image, no imperfections, no flaws. But it was impossible and the pressure was too much. The only time away from all the tension was when she could visit her aunts and cousin over in Greendale. The Spellmans taught her much about the druid arts, about potions and magic, about how to care for people. Things she was never allowed to do at home. 

The stress was so high that her sister sought out to revolt, and went to find love with the Blossom heir. Her parents were so angry that their reputation would be sullied by this dalliance that they sent her away to become a priestess of the Goddess of war to save face, as if that was what she was supposed to do in the first place. The only one that seemed to be exactly what her parents wanted was Charles. He became a paladin and was, according to her parents, perfect. She and her sister were never enough. 

After her sister was sent away, Betty had had enough and fled to Greendale to hide out at the Spellmans’ for a little while before leaving the region completely. She had been roaming the kingdom ever since. And now she was back and she hated it. She had hoped never to come back here again, but fate had other plans for her. 

Finishing her collecting, Betty and Caramel started to head toward Greendale to pay a visit to her aunts and cousin, when they heard a commotion coming from the path behind Pop’s tavern. Intrigued, Betty and her companion tiptoed to the ruckus and found a quarrel between a group of Northside knights and what appeared to be a lone Southsider. The young man seemed to be roughly the same age as her and appeared to be trying to talk his way out of whatever trouble he’d found his way into. _What an idiot_ _._

“You should not have come here, Jones”, one of the knights, whom she recognized as Lord Clayton’s son Chuck, seethed.

_Jones…_

The name seemed familiar to Betty, as if she had heard it before but couldn’t remember where.

“Last time I checked Clayton, Pop’s is open to everyone, including Southsiders”, this ‘Jones’ countered.

“We won’t let your Serpent ass poison the Northside”, another knight, Reggie Mantle, spit out in the young man’s face.

_Ah, so that's where it comes from!_

The Serpents’ leader’s name was Jones, FP Jones to be precise. Her mother used to rant about the Serpents and their leader all the time, insulting anyone from the Southside though she herself had come from the Southside — this was something Betty had learned about her mother right before she had left. She remembered Archie being friends with a Jones when they were kids, her mother had raged about that fact for weeks. _What was his name again? _Betty couldn’t remember, but this young man appeared to be FP Jones’ son. He had to know that going to Pop’s would have put a giant target on his back. Why would he put himself in that kind of situation on purpose?

“I am _not _a Serpent!”, the Southsider yelled.

“You may not wear the insignia but you are your father’s legacy. Stop denying it, snake!”, Chuck retorted.

_Typical Northside entitlement._

Betty recognized her upbringing much too well, putting down anyone from the Southside, spreading fear of the other side of the town to keep the children in line, constant suspicion towards Southsiders for any crime committed in the Northside. She hated it and had thankfully learned better in her travels. Being this close to close-minded assholes like Chuck and Reggie made Betty’s skin crawl.

“We already told you not to come this close to the Northside before and no matter how much you want to deny your Serpent heritage, we all know you’ll become one eventually. So stay on _your _side of the town or you’ll face the consequences!” Reggie threatened. 

“Pop’s isn’t on any side, Mantle, and I’ll come and go wherever I want, however I please. Your overinflated Northside egos don’t scare me. So now, fellas, I’m going to go back into the tavern and do my own thing in peace”, the young Jones answered.

_Oh no, this is not going to end well._

Naturally, the knights snapped and lunged at the Southsider. Betty suddenly had the urge to rescue him and the thought surprised her. She didn’t want to get involved in Riverdale matters, having left it all behind, but she had taken on tougher enemies before anyway. And so, deciding quickly, for the young Jones man was almost on the ground, she started pulling up her hood and hid her face the best she could before cocking up and arrow and positioning herself. Just as she fired the arrow, the Southsider took a nasty blow on the head and fell to the ground, unconscious. The arrow hit its target right next to Chuck’s ear and the knights froze. 

Betty yelled: “That was a warning shot, boys. You better scram before I decide to impale your testosterone-filled privileged Northside asses.”

All of the knights’ heads whipped toward her at her declaration.

“You sure you wanna do this, darling?” Chuck chuckled. “You almost took out my eye with that arrow of yours, you sure you’re not gonna hurt yourself there?”

Betty simply raised an eyebrow before cocking up her next shot and aiming it right at his crotch.

“You sure you want to provoke me, _darling_ _?”_ she snarled.

Chuck’s eyes grew like saucers for a moment before he tried to put up a front to mask his apprehension, but Betty caught the movement and smirked.

“You don’t scare us, bitch!” Reggie intervened.

Caramel suddenly appeared at Betty’s side, growling, while Betty shot her arrow at Reggie’s feet. He jumped at the impact, and he and the rest of his group looked utterly terrified of the lioness at Betty’s side. Oozing fear and rage, the group of knights scrambled away back toward the Northside of town. 

When they finally faded from view, Betty walked to the young man lying on the floor, checking his state before picking him up and placing him on Caramel's back. As they made their way towards the forest, Betty remembered a small burrow deep into the woods close-by where she used to hide and practice when she was still under the Cooper thrall. They would be safe there for the time being. They found the secret hidey-hole and Betty went to check if it was safe inside.

They deposited the man’s body on the soft mossy ground and Betty thanked her lucky stars that she carried all the ingredients she needed to treat him on her. As Caramel went to patrol around their hiding space, Betty took a better look at the man on the ground and she found him beautiful. The thought struck her. He had soft-looking short ebony hair and was wearing smooth linen clothes and leather boots, carrying a satchel that looked filled to the brim with journals and papers with a luth attached to the side of it. 

_Oh, so he's a bard_, she realized. It made sense, even though his name would have made her think ‘Serpent’ immediately. He didn’t look like a rogue, not completely anyway. She forced herself to stop ogling the young man and started examining him in more detail.

He was thankfully not badly injured, only bruised slightly over his chest, the gash on his head having stopped bleeding long ago. Betty cleaned that wound and put some salve onto it before bandaging his head, muttering a quick healing spell and making him more comfortable. The young man should be waking up within the next few hours, so Betty took that time to arrange the hole to make all three of them comfortable for the night as it was almost sundown already. Caramel came back inside the lair a few minutes later as Betty was preparing a fire, and made herself comfortable with a good book at the man’s feet.

* * *

The first thing Jughead thought when he regained consciousness was: _warmth_. He was comfortably warm and felt the softness of the ground beneath him. That made him pause, why was the ground soft? Last he remembered he was being beaten by Chuck and his goons behind Pop’s and the ground there was definitely not soft and comfortable. Why was he so cozy? And why did it sound like a cat was purring next to a fire?

He tried opening his eyes but his eyelids felt so heavy he couldn’t lift them. He tried moving any part of his body and could only groan at the pain he felt in his chest. Huh, so the beating had not been a dream and neither was this. Where was he? And why did his head feel like a woodpecker was trapped inside it? That question made him pause and he suddenly recalled a blow coming from the side from one of Chuck’s knights. 

The thought made him panic, reasoning that maybe Chuck and his posse would have taken him someplace after knocking him out to hurt him some more after he woke up, making him try to sit up abruptly. This brought on searing pain from his chest and head and a soft voice cursed next to him as he fell back down. 

Jughead didn’t have any time to wonder who the voice belonged to before he felt soft hands on his chest and face and cracked an eye open, seeing the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen surrounded by a blonde halo. The girl looked like an angel and appeared somewhat familiar, though he couldn’t recognize her from anywhere. He was so distracted he couldn’t understand what she was saying and tried to concentrate on her words.

“… hear me?” she said softly, her big green eyes full of concern.

He cleared his throat and muttered: “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Sorry, I… Where are we? What happened? Who are you?” His throat hurt, his words coming out raspy. 

It seemed as though she could sense this as she quickly produced a cup filled with water and helped him drink from it. She put the cup down next to her when he was done and he took a look around the small place. There was moss all over the walls and ground, which explained the softness of his resting place. The girl had put his satchel on his other side and had lit a fire in the middle of the den. He startled when he noticed the lioness watching him at his feet.

The blonde chuckled at his reaction and said: “This is Caramel, don’t worry she won’t hurt you. As long as you don’t hurt us, of course.”

Jughead’s head whipped toward hers at her words, incredulous. 

“I… You saved me, why would I hurt you?” he said, frowning.

The girl giggled and replied: “I was joking, don’t worry I know you wouldn’t hurt us. Not like you could anyway, considering how you fared against those assholes earlier.”

“Hey!” He exclaimed, outraged, though he recognized her smile as teasing. “I could’ve taken them on, you know.”

“Sure” she snorted. “Now I think you had a few questions. Well, for starters we are deep in Fox Forest, in a little hiding place of mine. I saved you from those knights and Caramel and I carried you over here so I could tend to your wounds. And as to who I am, well… Let’s just say that I am your guardian angel.”

“Really, you’re not gonna tell me your name?” He frowned, wondering why she was being so secretive about her identity. It may have something to do with how familiar she looked.

She looked away. “Let’s just say that you knowing my identity could be dangerous.”

“For me or for you?”

“For me, but I guess you wouldn’t be completely safe knowing who I am. Then again, you’re the son of a Serpent if what I heard outside of Pop’s is true. Danger must follow you, considering what I’ve stumbled upon when I saved you.”

Of course, she would know of his dad’s entanglement in the Serpents. There was no way she wouldn’t have heard that. It seemed she knew what the Serpents were, which means she would have preconceptions about him. He shouldn't have hoped not to be judged.

She interrupted his thoughts: “I heard what you said to Chuck and his henchmen about not being a Serpent.”

He frowned, not understanding where she was going with this.

“Don’t let them get to you. If you don’t want to be a Serpent, then you won’t be a Serpent. You’re the master of your fate, not the other way around. This is _your_ life, you gotta live it however the hell you want to, no matter what anyone says. If you want to write or sing or whatever the hell bards do, then that’s what you should do.” 

She shrugged and seemed to blush lightly after her little speech. She looked away and fiddled with some pots before taking a bowl and pouring some broth into it. She turned back toward him with a soft look on her face and handed him the bowl, getting one for herself after he took it.

“Eat up. You have to keep your strength up after such a beatdown,” she said softly.

“How did you get so wise?” he wondered.

“Experience, I guess. I’ve been on my own for a while, roaming the kingdoms. There’s a lot you learn on the road.” she shrugged.

“Do you have to give fake names everywhere you go? Since you could be in danger?”

“Sometimes, yeah. I try to keep anonymous so I won’t have to lie but I do what I have to do to survive. Caramel’s helped too, easy to intimidate someone when you have a _lion_ with you.” she chuckled.

He laughed: “Ah yeah, I guess that would make things easier. Does this danger have something to do with the fact that I find you strangely familiar?”

A sudden look of fear crossed her face before she could hide it and it only confirmed his suspicions.

“Maybe.”

“Well, don’t worry about me, it’s not like I have many people to tell your secrets to. I’m kind of a loner anyway without the whole ‘son of the Serpent king’ thing.”

She grinned: “Okay.”

He started, surprised, and beamed when it hit him. “Okay?”

“Yeah, why not? I could just kill you if it doesn’t work out. But only if you tell me yours.”

He cackled: “Alright, alright. It’s Jughead.”

She looked incredulous and he quickly cut off her impending question.

“Yes, it’s a nickname and no, don’t ask, the real thing’s worse. So, what’s yours?”

She took a deep breath.

“My name is Betty. Betty Cooper.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! 
> 
> As you can see, I've put this little oneshot in a series that I may or may not write one day. Let me know if you would want me to expand this little universe of mine. 
> 
> If you want to chat with me, find me [@alyssamydreams](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/alyssamydreams) on Tumblr.
> 
> Bisous!


End file.
